Page:William Hazlitt - Characters of Shakespear's Plays (1817).djvu/337

Rh Within the sequestered and romantic glades of the forest of Arden, they find leisure to be good and wise, or to play the fool and fall in love. Rosalind's character is made up of sportive gaiety and natural tenderness: her tongue runs the faster to conceal the pressure at her heart. She talks herself out of breath, only to get deeper in love. The coquetry with which she plays with her lover in the double character which she has to support is managed with the nicest address. How full of voluble, laughing grace is all her conversation with Orlando—

How full of real fondness and pretended cruelty is her answer to him when he promises to love her "For ever and a day!"